The Sleepover
Description Lilly reopens a 1990 murder case, in which a prep-school girl was found dead in a local swimming hole, after a present-day victim with similar markings is discovered at the same place. The investigation reveals that the victim of the earlier crime was routinely tormented by a trio of classmates who invited her to a sleepover the night she was killed. Synopsis The episode opens in November 1990. Ariel, Brandi, Tiffany, and Rita are all in a middle school class together. The teacher asks each of them about their plans for the weekend. The class laughs at Rita's plans to go shopping for an iguana with her mom. The bell rings and the class gets up to leave. Rita goes outside and puts her bike helmet on. The other kids laugh at her. We see her riding her bike down a leaf-lined street. She's happy and carefree. The next shot shows her lifeless body at the bottom of a ravine in Devil's Pool. There are circles with Xs in them drawn on her body in black. The case box is filed in the vault under "Baxter, R." Present day. Lilly, Stillman, and Scotty go to the scene of a current homicide. A 19 year old female named Caitlin Gather was found dead at the bottom of Devil's Pool. She drowned as her head was held under the water. She has the same marks on her body as Rita, and her body was found 14 years to the day. They don't believe it's a copycat murder because the detail about the marks was never released. Lilly, Scotty, and Stillman go through the case box down in the vault. The first detectives couldn't figure out what the marks meant. They checked with the FBI database, but nothing came up, suggesting they were not ritualistic. Rita attended a private, rich kid prep school, but she was there on scholarship. She died from a blunt force trauma to the head after hitting the rocks. Jeffries comes down and tells them that Det. Sherman just brought in a guy, Neil Beaudry, who was stopped along the highway. His car was full of Caitlin Gather's clothes. Sherman shows Lilly and Scotty to Neil Beaudry's parents. They insist that this must be a mistake because their son is schizophrenic. Lilly asks them if they knew Rita Baxter, but the parents say that they never met her. They did, however, hear about her death at Devil's Pool 14 years ago. Scotty suggests that the Beaudrys go home and get Neil's medication. Lilly and Sherman interrogate Neil while Scotty and Stillman watch through the glass. Neil tells them that he goes to Devil's Pool every year on the anniversary of Rita's death. He admits putting the marks on Kaitlin's body and then killing her, but he has little to say about Rita. Scotty suggests that they give Neil his meds, and he'll be more cooperative. Vera and Jeffries go speak with Rita's mom. She doesn't know Neil, but she knows his younger sister Brandi. She says the Beaudrys were never around because they were too busy spending their money. She tells them that Brandi spent her time tormenting Rita. She dropped Rita off at school one day, and Rita saw Brandi with Ariel (whom she used to be good friends with) and Tiffany. Rita didn't want to get out of the car because she knew the girls would torment her. Her mother told her that everyone who has ever been important in life was a loser. She reassured her that those girls are foolish for not wanting to hang out with her, and that she would be popular in college. She tells Vera and Jeffries that the Beaudrys just couldn't let Rita be. Scotty interrogates Neil now that the meds kicked in. He shows Neil a picture of Rita. He remembers her, and he remembers the marks on her skin. He says he put the same marks on Kaitlin to make her look like Rita, but he didn't put the marks on Rita. He tells Scotty that Rita was his first kiss. Brandi made Rita kiss Neil so she could "go to first base" at a sleepover the night she died. He tells Scotty that he didn't kill Rita, it was the house because it is an "evil house." Lilly, Scotty, Vera, Jeffries, and Stillman sit around in the main police office and discuss the case. Vera thinks Neil's a "whack job" with plenty of opportunity to kill Rita. Lilly wants to know why there are three girls who never admitted to spending the night at the sleepover with Rita the night she died. Stillman wants them to track the three down. Lilly and Scotty find Brandi working in a party planning job. She says that Rita came by the sleepover, but she left in the middle of the night. She never said anything because she was afraid she would have been blamed. She hasn't spoken with Ariel and Tiffany since high school. Lilly wants to know why an outcast like Rita was invited to Brandi's party. She says it was Ariel's idea. Ariel told Rita that Brandi thought she was cool and wanted her to come to the sleepover while her parents were out of town. Ariel assured Rita that it wasn't a trick, so Rita told them she would sneak out after her mom went to bed. Brandi tells Lilly and Scotty that she came over around 10pm and left after they hid her glasses. Jeffries and Vera go talk to Ariel (who is now a doctor). She tells them that Brandi and Tiffany really layed into Rita. Brandi circled Rita's "fat" with a magic marker. Each of the girls had to take a turn and circle it. Tiffany told her that she had fat like her mom, and that her mom was ugly. Ariel tells them that Rita's mom was having an affair with Tiffany's dad, but Rita didn't know about it. She says that Rita left after the fat marks. The rest of the girls stayed behind, but she doesn't know about Neil. Lilly and Jeffries talk to Rita's mom at the police station. She admits the affair, but she didn't know that Tiffany knew about it. The affair ended when Rita died. Vera asks her if she knows what happened to Tiffany, and she tells them that she had a drinking problem and was kicked out of high school. Valens goes to talk to Tiffany. She's under house arrest for multiple DUIs. She denies having anything to do with Rita's death. Scotty wants to know what went wrong in Tiffany's life to lead her to where she is now. She hated Rita, but she says she didn't have it in her to kill her. At the sleepover, they made fun of her glasses, hair, and called her eyes weird. Brandi's parents came home early, and Brandi instructed everyone to hide. Rita couldn't find her glasses, so she was caught by the Beaudrys. They asked her name, and she told them. Mr. Beaudry instructed Brandi to find her brother and he told his wife to run a bath. He asked Rita how many girls were over, and she lied (to protect Brandi) and said just herself. Mr. Beaudry called her a liar. Tiffany tells Scotty that the Beaudrys abused their children. She left after that, and doesn't know what they did to Rita. Lilly interrogates Mrs. Beaudry at the police station. Mrs. Beaudry says that someone has been telling her lies. She believes it's Brandi because she's a liar and a drug addict. Mrs. Beaudry says that they were physical with their children because they had to be. She says they were afraid of Brandi. Jeffries talks to Mr. Beaudry. He tells him that Brandi killed their cat. Brandi said it drowned, but they didn't believe her. He indicates that she was capable of killing Rita. Lilly talks to Brandi, and she tells her that her parents think she killed Rita. Brandi tells Lilly that she was an angry kid. The night of the sleepover, she was forced to go upstairs to the bathroom where her mom had run a bath. Her parents forced Neil to hold Brandi's head under water until she almost drowned as punishment for having friends over and lying about it. Neil kept asking his dad to let him release Brandi, but he made him hold her head down longer. Rita was standing outside the bathroom and saw it all. Brandi says that Rita was supposed to go home, but she must have come back. She and Neil were sent to their rooms, and the next day Rita was dead. Stillman tells Lilly, Vera, Valens, and Jeffries that the Beaudrys were right about Brandi. She was picked up for trying to get a morphine related drug with a false prescription. They know that Brandi thinks her parents killed Rita to keep the abuse a secret. Scotty decides to go talk to Neil, but he finds out that he's at the same hospital as Elisa. Lilly asks him if he's going to see Elisa while he's there, but he says it's not the right time. At the hospital, Scotty tells Neil that he knows about the "dunking" that his parents made him do. Neil explains that that is what happened to Caitlin. He goes to Devil's Pool every year because he misses Rita. He saw Caitlin there and thought it was Rita. He put the marks on her to remind him of Rita. He held Caitlin under the water to keep her quiet, but he held her too long. He says that his parents never left their room after the "dunking" incident. He tells Scotty that Rita tried to save him and his sister. Neil got Brandi in her room, and Rita entered. She told them what their parents were doing was wrong and she could help them. She wanted to tell another adult. Neil was willing to go, but Brandi kept denying it. Tiffany and Ariel came back into the room, and Brandi told them that she wanted Rita to die. The other girls agreed. Neil left Rita alone in Brandi's room with the three girls. Lilly brings Brandi, Tiffany, and Ariel into the interrogation room. She tells them that she knows one of them killed Rita, and the other two should save themselves. She leaves the room to see what happens. They start arguing amongst themselves, and Tiffany tells Brandi that she's not keeping her secrets anymore. Lilly and Scotty decide that the girls are ready. Scotty talks to Tiffany. She tells him that Brandi kept coming up with ideas to kill Rita. Brandi took a knife and cut her own finger so they could be blood sisters. Ariel agreed, but Tiffany thought she was crazy and left. She tried to take Rita, but Brandi wouldn't let her. Tiffany went downstairs and found the Beaudry's liquor cabinet and passed out. Back in the interrogation room, Lilly and Stillman watch as Brandi starts sweating and breathing harder. She grabs Ariel's purse and starts looking through it. Lilly knows she's looking for a drug fix, but Stillman wants to know why she's looking in Ariel's purse. She comes up empty handed. Lilly points out that Ariel is a doctor, and could write prescriptions for Brandi's habit. Stillman wants to know why she's risking her license to feed Brandi's addiction. Lilly gets Brandi alone because wants to know what she has on Ariel. Lilly tells her that she knows Brandi takes what she needs from people then loses them when she doesn't need them anymore, and Ariel's tapped out. Brandi says she got bored and sent Rita and Ariel home. She told Ariel that she wasn't cool, and she wasn't going to be friends with her anymore. She also told her that she was better off being friends with Rita. As Ariel and Rita left, Brandi told Ariel that she wasn't to sit with her in the lunchroom anymore. Brandi says they left, and she looked out the window and saw them cutting through the woods. Scotty and Lilly interrogate Ariel. She tells them that Brandi is in pain, and that's why she prescribed the drugs. Lilly tells her it was blackmail because Brandi knew what she did. Ariel starts crying, and asks Lilly if she hates her. Lilly tells her it doesn't matter. Ariel says she didn't know you lived through it. The night Rita died, Ariel was walking home with her and she was devastated about losing Brandi as a friend. Rita tried to comfort her, and she told her what her mom said about losers going on to be important later in life. Rita says that they can be friends, but Ariel gets upset and shoves her. Rita falls down the ravine and hits her head on a rock. The closing scenes are to Edie Brickell's "Circle." Tiffany leaves the police station and sees Lilly escorting Ariel to lock-up in jail. They pass Brandi. Scotty brings Brandi to the hospital to see Neil. Their parents come to visit, but Brandi doesn't want them to come in. Scotty shuts the door on them. Scotty enters the room where Elisa stays. Lilly tells Rita's mother what happened. Rita rides her bike down the street just as carefree as in the beginning. She passes Lilly, who is getting into her car. Lilly watches her ride down the street and disappear. Cast Main Cast *Kathryn Morris as Lilly Rush *Danny Pino as Scotty Valens *John Finn as John Stillman *Jeremy Ratchford as Nick Vera *Thom Barry as Will Jeffries Guest Cast *Nicholas Guest as Jason Beaudry *Fred Koehler as Neil Beaudry (2004) *Abigail Mavity as Rita Baxter *Kevin McCorkle as Det. Gil Sherman *Judy Prescott as Kelly Baxter *Emma Bates as Ariel Shuman (2004) *Daveigh Chase as Ariel Shuman (1990) *Katie Mitchell as Teacher *Mary Chris Wall as Holly Beaudry *Ashley Rose Orr as Tiffany O'Connell (1990) *Dawn Stahlak as Tiffany O'Connell (2004) *Virginia Williams as Brandi Beaudry (2004) *Carly Schroeder as Brandi Beaudry (1990) Co-Starring *Chaffee Graham as Neil Beaudry (1990) *John Benjamin Martin as Det. McElroy *'Unknown actress' as Caitlin Gather Notes *This episode is loosely based on the 1989 film Heathers. *This episode is loosely based on the murder of Shanda Sharer. *At twelve years old, Ariel Shuman is tied with Jimmy Bartram from "Justice" and George Marks from "Mind Hunters"/ "The Woods" and Chuck Pierce from "One Small Step" as the youngest doer seen on the show. Ariel is the only girl of the four. *REM "Stand" *The La's "There She Goes" *Crowded House "Something So Strong" *Simple Minds "Alive and Kicking" *The Bangles "In Your Room" *Erik Broms "Don't Leave the Girl" *The Pixies "Wave of Mutilation" *The Cure "Lullaby" *Martika "Toy Soldiers" *'Closing Song': Edie Brickell "Circle" Sleepover, The Sleepover, The